(SECOND UPDATE)
The military finally located on Wednesday, March 5, at the Mt. Kalatungan mountain range in Bukidnon the wreckage of an FA-50 fighter jet of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) that went missing while on tactical night operations as it was confirmed to have crashed.
“Yes, the aircraft has been found in Mt. Kalatungan area around 11 a.m. today,” said Lt. Gen. Luis Rex Bergante, commander of the Eastern Mindanao Command (EastMinCom). The mountain range is located in the central part of Bukidnon province.
The two pilots onboard the fighter jet were found dead inside the crashed aircraft by dispatched search and rescue (SAR) teams from the Special Forces, according to Bergante. Their identities were withheld pending notice to their families.
“The aircraft was a total wreck,” Bergante said. The crashed aircraft has a tail number of "002", among the first FA50s delivered to the PAF in 2015.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said that the FA-50 fighter jet provided air support to ground troops who were running after New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in Bukidnon. Local media reported that clashes erupted in the town of Cabanglasan, eastern part of Bukidnon, on Tuesday midnight.
This was also the reason why the PAF could not immediately divulge the possible location of the fighter jet on Tuesday as they wanted government rescuers to reach the possible crash site first before the rebels.
PAF spokesperson Col. Ma Consuelo Castillo said that when the other aircraft involved in the mission returned to Mactan Air Base in Cebu, they tried to re-establish contact with the missing FA-50, but to no avail.
“Based on our interviews with the pilots that were able to return to Mactan, they just immediately lost contact with the FA-50 while en route to their target area of operation,” Castillo said.
However, the PAF was able to detect signals from the personal locator beacons of the pilots which emitted signals, and that was used as the basis in finding the general area of the aircraft’s location.
Castillo described the crash site as "mountainous, forested, and foggy."
The PAF conducted an investigation to determine the cause of the crash but Castillo stressed that the FA-50 has night flying capabilities and the pilots were “very well trained.”
However, she admitted that operating at night comes with great risks.
“The mission was carried out, although admittedly, it is really dangerous to operate at night. It takes really a lot of skills and guts to carry out that mission. It’s a big challenge but we really have to do it to support our ground troops so they would have a big advantage over our enemies,” she noted.
FA-50 fleet grounded
Following the incident, the PAF has grounded the remaining 11 units of its FA-50 fighter jets, dealing a blow to the operations of the military. Aside from anti-insurgency operations, the aircraft is also used for patrolling the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
“So far, the Air Force has grounded our FA-50s,” Castillo confirmed.
The acquisition of the FA-50s began in 2015 and over the span of two years, South Korean manufacturer Aerospace Industries Ltd. delivered 12 units of the said aircraft to the PAF for P18.9 billion.
The aircraft was considered a “game changer” during the 2017 Marawi siege, providing air support to ground troops against the terrorists.
“That proves that it was already battle-tested so this incident was really unfortunate,” according to Castillo.